Herbert Terwyen, Roberto de Palo, Manuel Sanchez
Papers # 2016 Berlin
New standards in Italy legally require that chlorine dioxide is used as a disinfectant in any new installation that treat water for human consumption. Chlorine dioxide is preferred to other disinfectants when surface water or water from rivers is used for drinking water supply and particularly Southern European countries started to investigate this option. Next to inherent advantages of using chlorine dioxide, the stronger oxidative degradation effect on pipe materials could represent a significant disadvantage.
Due to this trend, the question about the durability of the current pipe systems and improved pipe materials for water supply becomes crucial. Accelerated test methods are necessary to evaluate the performance of materials that get into contact with water containing chlorine dioxide.
Investigations have been conducted in cooperation with IRETI (previous IREN), a major Italian multiutility. A method has been developed to differentiate PE100 pipe materials according to their resistance to water containing chlorine disinfectants.
LNE, France, developed the methodology of the NOL Ring Creep Test (Draft standard XP T 54-986) and several materials have been tested accordingly.
This article describes the test methodologies and reports the results obtained with different pipe materials. Recently developed improved grades can be clearly differentiated from standard materials.
